Expert answer:Answer the questions from Chapter 3
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CHAPTER
3
Critical Reasoning Skills for
Evaluating Disputes in
Cyberethics
You may wonder why a chapter dedicated to critical reasoning skills is included in
a book on cyberethics.1 To appreciate the important role that these skills play in
our examina- tion of cyberethics issues, recall the methodological framework that
we developed in Chapter 1. There we saw that the final step of that methodology
requires that we defend or justify our position by evaluating it against the rules of
logical argumentation.2 In Chapter 3 we examine some basic critical reasoning
concepts needed to do this. To accomplish these objectives, we
_ examine the structure of a logical argument and show how
arguments are used in resolving disputes affecting ethical aspects of
cybertechnology;
_ evaluate the strength of arguments by distinguishing between
arguments that are valid and invalid, sound and unsound, inductive and
fallacious;
_ identify some common logical fallacies that occur in everyday
reasoning and show how they apply to arguments affecting cyberethics
issues. Additional material on critical reasoning skills is included in
Appendix G, available at www.wiley.com/college/tavani. c 3.1
GETTING STARTED In Chapter 2, we learned how to apply
ethical theories to cyberethics issues and we saw how those theories
provided a consistent and systematic approach to analyzing ethical issues.
For example, we saw how a typical cyberethics issue could be
systematically approached from the vantage point of a standard ethical
theory, such as utilitarianism, deontology, etc. At some point, however, we
may also need to defend—give a reason for why—we selected one
particular ethical theory over another. Additionally, we may sometimes
need to convince others about which ethical theory is best for analyzing
cyberethics issues in general.
74
c
It is also possible that others may try to convince you with regard to why a
particular theory or framework is best for analyzing some ethical issue. Or, they
may try to persuade you either to accept or violate policies and laws that have
ethical implications—e.g., they may wish to convince you to endorse a specific
Internet user policy. They may also try to persuade you as to how one ought to
behave online, based on their perceptions or beliefs about the legitimacy or
nonlegitimacy of certain policies and laws. Consider, for instance, disputed
policies involving digital intellectual property and the appropriateness of
downloading copyrighted material from the Internet. It is possible that you may be
unclear about some of those laws and policies, or unclear about how to behave
appropriately in light of those laws and policies—especially ones that might not
initially seem to be unethical (even if they are illegal).
In the following scenario, where you are conflicted about whether or not to
download a software application from the Internet, a friend tries to convince you
why you should take one course of action rather than another.
c SCENARIO 3–1: Reasoning About Whether to Download a File from
“Sharester”
You are contemplating downloading a software application that is available on a Web site
called Sharester, a peer-to-peer (P2P) site set up for file sharing. Sharester is not officially
designated as a “pirate site” because it provides users mainly with access to (freely
available) open-source software applications. However, the site also enables users to
download a few proprietary (or copyrighted) software programs. It turns out that the
particular software application you are interested in downloading is proprietary, and there
is no reason to believe that the copyright holder of that application has authorized its
being freely downloaded by users on this P2P site. You want to download this application
for personal use (only) but you are conflicted about what to do, and you discuss your
concerns with a good friend.
Your friend tries to convince you not to download the proprietary software program,
using the following rationale: Downloading proprietary software (without permission
from the copyright holder) is identical to stealing physical property. Stealing physical
property is morally wrong. Therefore, downloading proprietary software (without
permission) is morally wrong. &
Is the reasoning process used by your friend a good one? How do we determine
that? If we rely solely on our intuitions, we might be inclined to think that the
reasoning process used here is very solid (and in this case, the conclusion reached
in the reasoning process would indeed seem to be true). But what about the
reasoning process itself, i.e., the “reasoning form,” used in this case. Is the
evidence provided by your friend sufficient to guarantee the truth of the
conclusion reached? Also, can we always trust our intuitions (solely) when
reasoning about what to do in situations similar to this one? Fortunately, there are
some objective criteria that we can use to distinguish good and bad reasoning
(what we will call valid vs. invalid/fallacious reasoning).
Later in this chapter (at the end of Section 3.8), we apply a seven-step strategy to
evaluate the reasoning process used in the above scenario. First, however, we need
to understand some basic terms and concepts used by logicians to analyze the
strength of reasoning forms called arguments.
3.1.1 Defining Two Key Terms in Critical Reasoning: Claims and
Arguments
Critical reasoning is a branch of informal logic. It aims at assisting us in
evaluating the strength of arguments and in analyzing (the truth or falsity of)
claims. Claims, also called
3.1 GettingStarted b 75
76 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
statements or assertions, comprise a form of reasoning called a logical argument or
argument.
For our purposes, an argument, which contains at least two claims, can be defined
as a reasoning form, or structure, that attempts to establish the truth of one claim
(called a conclusion) based on the assumed truth of the evidence in other claims
(called premises) provided to support the conclusion. Thus, an argument is a form
of reasoning that has two important characteristics or features in that it
i. includes at least two claims (but can include an indefinite number of claims);
ii. aims at establishing a conclusion (i.e., the truth of one claim) based on evidence
provided by one or more other claims, called premises.
We will see that whereas arguments are either valid or invalid, the claims that
comprise them are either true or false. First, however, we examine an important
role that arguments can play when someone is trying to support or defend a
position that may be in some dispute.
.
3.1.2 The Role of Arguments in Defending Claims
.
3.1.3 The Basic Structure of an Argument
Consider a
hypothetical scenario involving a claim about the development of a controversial and powerful new computer chip—code-named Chip X—in Japan.
This new chip is purported to be so powerful in speed and performance that
it will eclipse any computer chips that manufacturers in the United States,
such as Intel or AMD, will be capable of producing during the next several
years. Chip X will also enable the manufacturer to monitor certain activities
of those users whose computers contain the chip in ways that pose serious
threats to personal privacy. Suppose I claim that Chip X is currently
under development by Mishito Corpora- tion. Let us further suppose that
you are skeptical about my claim. There are a number of ways I could
attempt to convince you: I could persuade you to accompany me on a trip to
Japan to see first-hand whether or not Chip X is being developed there. In
this case, we could obtain direct evidence about my claim. But if you are
unable or unwilling to accompany me to Japan, I will have to use some
other, less direct mode of verification to convince you. For example, I
could show you a copy of the design specifications for Chip X, extracted
from a confidential Mishito Corporation document that I happened to
acquire. Or perhaps I could ask a mutual colleague of ours who recently
studied as an exchange student at the University of Hiroshima, where the
field testing for this new chip is being carried out, to corroborate my claim
regarding Chip X. That is, I can put together various pieces of evidence to
construct a logical argument that supports my claim. Now we are in a
position to debate the merits of my argument regarding Chip X without
having to go to Japan to verify the truth of my claim. Before we debate the
strength of my argument, however, we must first understand some essential
features of an argument’s structure.
We noted in Section 3.1 that
an argument consists of two or more claims, one of which is called the
conclusion; the others are called the premises. The standard form for
3.1 GettingStarted b 77 representing an argument is to list the premises first and
then state the conclusion. The
following structure represents an argument’s standard form:
PREMISE 1 PREMISE 2 (optional) PREMISE 3 (optional) .
(optional)
.
.
PREMISE n
CONCLUSION
To support my claim that Chip X is currently being developed in Japan, in the
conclusion of my argument, I would need to list the evidence in the form of one or
more premises. For example, I could use the following argument form:
PREMISE 1. When I recently visited the Computer Science Department at the
University of Hiroshima in Japan, I noticed that graduate students and professors
there were field-testing a new computer chip, whose code name is Chip X.
PREMISE 2. I have a copy of the design specifications for Chip X, which shows
that it will be several times faster than any chip currently available in the United
States.
PREMISE 3. Lee Smith, a mutual colleague of ours who was recently an exchange
student in the computer science program at the University of Hiroshima and who
participated in the field-testing of Chip X, will corroborate my claim.
CONCLUSION. Chip X is currently being developed in Japan.
This particular argument includes three premises and a conclusion; additional
premises could be added. However, an argument requires at least one premise
along with a conclusion. In this section, we are concerned only with an argument’s
structure and not with how strong the argument might be. An argument, however
weak it may ultimately be, still qualifies as an argument if its structure (or
reasoning form) includes one or more premises and a conclusion.
You might have observed that the claim expressed in the conclusion to our
argument about Chip X could also be verified (i.e., determined to be either true or
false) independent of the evidence provided in the argument’s premises. Since the
conclusion contains a statement that is descriptive, or empirical (i.e., capable of
being observed through sensory experience), the truth or falsity of the conclusion
could be resolved in this case simply by going to Japan to see whether such a chip
was actually being developed there.
78 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
However, not all arguments have empirical or descriptive statements as their
conclusions. Suppose that a friend wants to convince you that Internet users
should be allowed to write a blog on how to build a bomb. (Note that this is a
normative claim because it includes the word “should”; you may want to consult
the distinction we drew in Chapter 1 between normative and descriptive claims.)
Further, suppose that his reason for holding this view is based on the principle that
people are allowed to write books on how to build bombs, and authors of blogs
should have the same rights and freedoms as authors of books. And suppose your
friend bases his reasoning for this claim on the right of authors to express
themselves as guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution. His argument could be constructed as follows:
PREMISE 1. A person’s right to author a book on how to build a bomb is
protected by the First Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution).
PREMISE 2. Authoring a book is similar to authoring a blog on the Internet.
CONCLUSION. A person’s right to author a blog on how to build a bomb ought
to be protected by the First Amendment.
Notice how this argument differs from the preceding one. For one thing, we can’t
simply go to Japan to determine whether this conclusion is true or false. For
another, the conclusion contains a normative statement (one that includes
“ought”). Unlike the previous argument, which contained a descriptive statement
in its conclusion that could be verified independent of the argument, we now
depend on the form of reasoning alone to help us determine whether the
conclusion is true. In doing this, we will assume that the premises in this argument
are true and then ask whether the conclusion would logically follow from them.
Initially, the reasoning in this argument might seem plausible: the person
construct- ing the argument cleverly uses an analogy based on a legal right that
applies in physical space. So, we might assume that any legal rights that citizens
enjoy in physical space should automatically be extended to cyberspace.
In this argument, we are also asked to consider certain features or characteristics
that are common to both (printed) books and blogs. Clearly, we can draw a
number of analogies here. For example, both books and blogs can communicate
and disseminate information to readers; each is authored by one or more persons;
and so forth. However, there is a danger in pushing some of these analogies too
far: Whereas traditional books are tangible items existing in physical space, blogs
are not. And the scope of a blog allows it to be accessed by members of the
international community, some of whom may have no access to physical books or
may lack sufficient funds to purchase such books. We now begin to see
dissimilarities between books and blogs, so we must be cautious about drawing
conclusions when reasoning by analogy. Later in this chapter, we will see why
arguments of this kind are not valid. First, however, we consider some strategies
for constructing arguments.
c 3.2 CONSTRUCTING AN ARGUMENT
Think of some situations in which arguments are used by those in powerful
positions, as well as by ordinary persons. Lawyers, for example, use arguments to
try to persuade
juries; and politicians often use arguments to convey their positions to their
constitu- encies. All of us use arguments when we try to convince a friend, a
spouse, or a boss about some point or other. If you try to convince your parents
that they should buy you a new iPod, for example, you will most likely be making
an argument of some sort. Ultimately, arguments will succeed or not succeed
depending on (a) how well they are constructed and (b) how strong their reasoning
forms are. We refer to (b) as argument strength, and we examine that concept in
Section 3.3 in our discussion of valid vs. invalid arguments. In this section, we
focus on how arguments are constructed.
Arguments often appear as editorials in newspapers and periodicals where they are
sometimes expressed in prose forms that can obscure the argument, making it
difficult to isolate and analyze. When this happens we must locate the arguments
concealed in the text before we can analyze them. Consider the political debate
over the need for a new national missile defense (NMD) system, which has been
controversial from both a domestic and an international perspective. A fairly
straightforward argument in favor of NMD in the editorial section of a newspaper
might look something like the following:
We must build a national missile defense system because without such a system we are
vulnerable to nuclear attacks from rogue nations that might arise in the future. Engineers
and computer scientists have testified that they can design a computer-guided missile
defense system that is effective, safe, and reliable. It is our obligation as Americans to
take whatever measures we can to protect the safety of our citizens.
Before we analyze this argument, however, it is perhaps worth making a few
parenthetical remarks about certain events leading up to NMD. The debate in the
U.S. Congress over NMD that occurred during the George W. Bush administration
can be viewed as an updated version of the earlier “Star Wars” debate, officially
known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (or SDI). That debate, which took place
during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, was significant for cyberethics
because it was one of the first ethical controversies to catch the attention of a
group of computer ethics pioneers.3 We will examine some specific ethical issues
pertaining to Star Wars and NMD of interest to computer professionals in Chapter
4. Our primary purpose in this chapter, however, is to consider the NMD
controversy only insofar as it illustrates how logical arguments can be constructed
and analyzed.
There has been strong support for NMD among many conservative politicians in
the United States. As suggested above, a proponent of the NMD system could
construct an argument for his or her case by first asserting that without such a new
missile system, the United States is vulnerable to future attacks from potential
“rogue” nations that might acquire nuclear weapons. The proponent might next
want to assure us that there is sufficient and compelling evidence that such a
missile defense system would be safe and reliable. Finally, the NMD supporter
might assume the following principle: “We must do whatever is necessary to
preserve the safety of America and its people.” The structure of the proponent’s
argument can be represented as follows:
3.2 ConstructinganArgument b 79
PREMISE 1. Without the NMD, the United States is vulnerable to nuclear attacks
in the future from rogue nations.
80 c Chapter 3. Critical Reasoning Skills for Evaluating Disputes in Cyberethics
PREMISE 2. Computer scientists and engineers have testified before Congress
that they can design a computer-guided missile defense system that is both safe
and reliable.
PREMISE 3. The United States must do whatever is necessary to preserve the
military defense of the nation and the safety of its citizens.
CONCLUSION. The United States should build the NMD.
So far, we have considered only the structure of this argument. That is, we have
described its two basic components—its premises and conclusion—and we have
repre- sented it in standard logical form. Now we ask: Is the reasoning used in the
argument strong? Are there rules that will enable us to determine this? To answer
these questions, we first need to understand the difference between valid and
invalid arguments.
c 3.3 VALID ARGUMENTS
The first question we could ask about the sample argument described in the
preceding section is whether its reasoning is strong or weak—that is, is the
argument’s reasoning valid or is it invalid? “Valid” and “invalid” are technical
terms in logic. Whereas claims (the individual statements that make up an
argument) are either true or false, arguments will be either valid or invalid; it is
incorrect to refer to an argument as either true or false, and it is incorrect to refer
to a claim as either valid or invalid.
How can we determine whether a particular argument is valid or invalid? In
formal systems of logic, elaborate schemes that consist of symbols, rules, and
tables have been constructed for determining when arguments are valid or invalid.
Alternatively, however, some “informal” systems of logic, such as the system
developed by John Nolt (2002), also enable us to accomplish this task. Nolt’s
system does not require that we know anything about the actual truth or falsity of
the claims in an argument’s premise(s) in order to determine whether an argument
is valid or invalid. Instead, we need only to determine whether the argument’s
conclusion would necessarily fol …
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